


Her Majesty's Brat

by BlueRoboKitty



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boss/Employee Relationship, Company Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Femdom, Fluff and Smut, Heavy BDSM, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pegging, Romance, Secret Relationship, Sorry Not Sorry, bratty sub, plenty of shance too, so much pegging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:38:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8522473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRoboKitty/pseuds/BlueRoboKitty
Summary: 21-year-old Keith Song isn't doing much with his BA in journalism. Tired of being a barista, he turns in a job application to be a Blackjack dealer at a Las Vegas casino only to end up becoming personal assistant to Allura, CEO of Altea Entertainment who is just as powerful as she is disorganized. By day, Keith navigates through the world of corporate politics where there is a delicate balance between ass-kissing and ass-kicking. At night, his irresistibly attractive boss leads him to a far darker, more exciting place, a place he would much rather be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody asked for a Kallura 50 Shades ripoff but too bad you are getting one. :B
> 
> Actually all I took was the CEO/employee part and then I was like "okay but femdom holy shit". And it wouldn't leave me alone after that. So here ya go. 
> 
> I'm pretty excited to finally start posting it, I've actually been working on this project since late September. Please enjoy!

Of all the mornings to be awake when Keith had not slept well at all.

A job interview scheduled a few short hours from now was the only thing capable of dragging him messy haired and bleary eyed out of bed on his day off, his body still heavy with sleep and a very uncomfortable boner tenting his sweatpants despite the _horrific_ sounds coming from down the hall the night before. He shuffled to the bathroom without actually seeing where he was going. Not for the first time he was so grateful that the house he rented with Shiro came with two upstairs bathrooms where he could get ready for the day in peace.

Shiro’s dumbass boyfriend had stayed over last night.

And worse, that guy was the type who just _had_ to sound like the dirtiest porn star when he was banging Keith’s roommate. Keith had the worst time falling asleep, and then when he finally did what felt hours later, he had legit nightmares. Involving marshmallows for some reason. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d have to speak to Shiro about doing something to make his slutty partner keep it at a dull roar whenever he came over for the night. Gag him or whatever, for the love of Christ.

Keith sighed as he dried and combed his jet black hair until it curled just above his shoulders. In hindsight, he probably should’ve gotten a haircut, that might look more professional considering this was a job interview and everything. And this time not for some crummy fast food joint or abusive department store. Too late now, so he settled for pulling it all back in a tight little ponytail and hope that would be enough.

Altea Entertainment was an upcoming new chain of casinos in the Las Vegas strip. They only had one establishment right now, The Voltron, but it was incredibly popular, and every Sunday the Review-Journal raved about how the company was quickly becoming major competition with some big names like MGM Resorts, Caesar’s, and the Stations. There were still plenty of job openings including dealer positions, in-house training and everything. It wasn’t exactly Keith’s idea of a dream job, but playing Blackjack against drunk tourists with too much money to throw away was infinitely better than making minimum wage at a local Starbucks plagued by college yuppies with too little money to tip properly. Not that his coffee shop encouraged tips anyway, not with its sad little cup with “tip me” written over it like beggar’s tin that almost every customer ignored. Tips was where you really made your money in Las Vegas, and if you wanted tips, you had to go where the tourists are.

Though, Keith supposed if wanted to score on those tips, he should probably work on his people skills a bit. Just the other day, he had some disagreeable lady come into his work, chatting on the latest and most expensive smartphone like it wasn’t the morning rush and there weren’t a bajillion people behind her and Keith didn’t have other responsibilities to take care of for his shift.

_If he hadn’t been so annoyed, he would have considered her pretty, with skin like bronze, silver curls framing her face, and eyes as blue as the desert sky. She also had two pinkish birthmarks on her cheeks, one beneath each eye, perhaps the most intriguing feature about her. Her dark lips were set in a deep frown as she chatted on her smartphone about something that Keith didn’t care enough to pay attention to; he just wanted her damn order already. Business, judging by the perfectly creased lilac pinstripe suit she wore._

_After about what felt like over five minutes, and feeling the glares of the customers behind her blaming him for this holdup, Keith cleared his throat. When nothing happened, the frenzy of the morning rush and the anxiety of patrons getting pissed at him finally been too much to take. “Ma’am, are you going to order or not?”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_If looks could kill, Keith would have died where he stood. Then she glanced around and saw that she really was at the front of the line, a blush forming over her cute nose. She had been so caught up in her conversation, she hadn’t realized it was her turn. Which happened more often than not with business customers, really. An honest mistake._

_But Keith wasn’t in the mood to be all that understanding._

_The lady giggled apologetically to the impatient customers behind her, but when she looked at Keith again, the glare was back. “Verde white mocha. Two shots of espresso,” she ordered in a light British accent._

_“Would you like whipped cream on that?” Keith deadpanned back as he wrote her order out on the plastic cup so the next guy would make her coffee to perfection and get her out of his hair forever. He had never seen her before, so he doubted she would become a regular._

_“Sure,” she clipped._

_“Your name?”_

_“Allura.”_

_“How do you spell it?” When her glower deepened he added, “Just don’t wanna spell your name wrong, ma’am.”_

 " _A-L-L-U-R-A,” she bit out from between gritted teeth._

_Placing her cup to the side, Keith gave her his most dazzling, customer service smile, something he’d managed to perfect over years of suffering in retail since he was sixteen. Over five long, torturous years of dealing with people like this Allura person. “Anything else I can get for you today, Allura?”_

_The room definitely felt like it darkened. “No. Thank you.”_

" _That’ll be $5.24.”_

_As she swiped her card, she returned to her phone and ignored Keith completely even when he handed her a receipt. “I’m sorry, Brian, I was ordering some coffee. Yes, of course I was listening – “_

Keith shuddered with residual embarrassment as he tugged on his black suit for today’s interview. If all went well, then he could kiss Starbucks goodbye and never drink overpriced, mediocre coffee ever again. Or deal with spoiled customers. He had been lucky, so damn lucky, that Allura had probably regarded him as too insignificant to bother calling his manager and getting him fired. She wasn’t the first customer he’d had an ordeal with, and Bob’s patience with him only went so far. It went without saying that Keith wasn’t much of a people person, and he had about twenty different retail jobs under his belt from all the times he had been fired for getting too mouthy with a customer.

Filling out the application for Altea Entertainment, which required him to go back about ten years with his employment history, had been nothing short of a nightmare. He really hoped this interview callback meant the company wasn’t too concerned about flipping through five pages of past employers that he’d been bouncing around since he was a high school sophomore.

The kitchen smelled wonderful as Keith tromped downstairs **,** trying to shake off the last bits of sleep. “Morning, Shi – oh.”

His smile immediately faded when he saw _that guy_ in his kitchen, cooking at his stove, wearing only boxers and a frilly pink apron bright over his beige brown skin, all shoulders and a skinny waist. When did they ever have a frilly pink apron? Blue eyes regarded Keith with a disappointment that matched his own. “Mornin’, sunshine,” Lance replied dryly. “Off to prom?”

“Job interview.”

“Where at?”

“None of your business.”

“Fine, no breakfast for you then. Ass.”

Keith scowled as he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of cold coffee from the shelf. “What are you even doing?” he demanded, shaking the can before opening it. “And why the hell are you naked in my kitchen?”

Lance rolled his eyes with a snort. _“Your_ kitchen?”

“Uh, yeah. I live here. You don’t. _Go home.”_

“Excuse you, I _always_ make Shiro breakfast in the morning when I stay over. I was gonna make you some, too, but since you’re bein’ such a charmer right now, you can make your own damn breakfast.”

“What are you getting pissed about? You were the one who kept me up all night last night.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say because then Lance smirked at him, wide and devious, one eyebrow raised so high it all but disappeared beneath his short dark brown bangs. “Oh? I was only tryin’ to keep Shiro up all night. Why? Didya enjoy it?”

“Absolutely _not.”_

_“Liiiiiiar.”_

Well, that explained why Shiro’s talks with Lance hadn’t been working. Lance was _deliberately_ being loud enough for Keith to hear him, the shit.

Ugh, Keith really didn’t have time or the energy to get into it with his roommate’s obnoxious boyfriend right now. For all his annoying faults, Keith put up with him mostly for Shiro's sake. Shiro and Lance had been together for the better part of a year, more open with their relationship now that Lance had graduated from college alongside Keith. Keith still couldn’t believe that their four years of bitter college rivalry had led to Lance Moreno getting together with Takashi Shirogane, Keith’s childhood best friend. It was just _wrong._ Maybe that’s why he was being punished like this, the whole relationship had all been his fault from the start.

At that moment, Shiro came down the stairs and into the kitchen, looking far more bright eyed and bushy tailed than Keith. “Morning, guys,” he greeted, rolling a sleeve of his collared shirt up to his elbow and, as always, looking like the slightest flex of his muscular body was going to shred his shirt to pieces. His right arm, a robotic prosthetic, hummed quietly with each little movement.

A few years ago, Shiro was one of the most respected cops of the Metro area, and when he wasn’t protecting the citizens from criminals, he was protecting them from disaster as a volunteer firefighter. Until one fire rescue a few years ago had gone very, very wrong. Not even Keith knew all the details of that night because Shiro never talked about it, though he suspected a bomb had been involved. Whatever happened, Shiro ended up losing his arm. For the longest time, he couldn’t bring himself to wear short sleeve shirts, not even during the excruciating Nevada summer, convinced, he’d often told Keith, that people were constantly staring at him. Staring at his prosthetic. Feeling sorry for him. More than several careless people have asked him if he lost his limb during a military deployment.

Now, Shiro was more confident in letting the world see his handicap. He went back to college, and ended up becoming an eighth grade science teacher at the middle school not far from their neighborhood. Fragments of his old self emerged more and more as the days went on, more smiling, less staring off into the distance. Even with the prosthetic, the deep scar across his handsome face, and the forelock of bangs that had turned white from the stress of trauma and the persistent nightmares. He was still himself. Changed. Different. But himself.

So when Lance asked his boyfriend, “Didya sleep good last night?”, the cheeky grin and flirty wink softened the deeper meaning all three of them could pick up on. Both Lance and Keith had plenty of experience taking care of Shiro when his sleep haunted him.

Shiro smiled softly and leaned over to kiss Lance’s cheek. “Yes. I slept just fine.”

“Unlike some people,” Lance taunted as he threw Keith a smirk over his shoulder.

Shiro sighed. “Lance. We talked about this.”

“I knoooooow. I’m just playin’. Not my fault your roommate needs to remove that rod shoved up his – “

“Lance!”

Lance stuck his tongue out and said nothing else. God, it felt like that cheeky little shit was just trying extra hard to get under Keith’s skin just because he had an interview today. Keith sipped his cold canned mocha and hoped the butterflies in his stomach would grow tired and calm the fuck down by the time he got to his interview. He glanced over in time to see Shiro palm one of Lance’s asscheeks. The younger man playfully smacked his hand away, making Shiro give a mischievous grin of his own.

It was cute in a kind of sickening way. Lance was obnoxious and overconfident and loved to get in Keith’s way but… Keith had to admit Shiro hadn’t smiled this much in long, long while and that was by no small amount of patient effort on Lance’s part. For all of his faults, he had understanding and compassion in spades, probably more than Keith could ever have.

Keith chugged the rest of the coffee, suddenly very uncomfortable and a little strange. Like he shouldn’t be here. “Okay, I’m going to head on out,” he announced as casually as possible, crushing the empty can and tossing it in the recycling bin.

“Already?” Shiro asked, blinking in surprise. “You’re not going to eat?”

Keith shrugged and forced at least a small smile on his face to reassure his roommate. “Nah, I’m a little too nervous to eat.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I’m not as brave as Shiro to try anything Lance cooks.”

“My omelets are the shit, I’ll have you know!” Lance shot back, and then added with a grumble, “At least have a _tostada_ or somethin’.”

“I’ll pick something up on the way out.” Now, Keith was super uncomfortable. Lance suddenly worried about his well-being wasn’t something Keith thought he would ever get used to. That guy was so unpredictable. How was he Shiro’s type at all?

Shiro smiled at him in return. “Okay. Good luck with your interview! You got this.”

“Y-yeah, good luck and whatever,” Lance added, scooping a fresh omelet onto a plate. “Here, babe, eat up so you don’t teach the kiddos about how the birds and the bees on an empty stomach.”

“I actually don’t teach that.”

“Well, you _should._ Better than whatever the state decides to tell them.”

“Don’t you have work?”

“Class today so I’m on call.”

Their private smiles meant only for each other came back, and neither of them noticed as Keith slipped out the door and their conversation faded away.

 

* * *

 

There was a very retro 80s feel to this casino, maybe because of the synthesized rock music blasting from the speakers or the space theme; ceilings painted in galaxies with colors so vivid it was like really peeking up into outer space. Or maybe all the slot machines and games were carefully picked out to have a very futuristic theme, with flashy lights and sounds reminiscent of an old space opera cult classic. Or all the… cat statues? To be fair, they were pretty cool looking, various points lit up with an aqua glow as if they were alive.

Robots and space, Keith could get.

The cat part?

Well, nothing could draw a modern crowd these days like cats and space. No wonder this place seemed to have exploded with popularity overnight. It was an internet meme come to life with the promise of fun and easy money.

Keith scrolled on his phone at the email sent to him with directions when he received his callback. The offices were located on the top floor, the company still small enough to operate within the casino itself, but all the email said was to speak to the receptionist at the front when he walked out of the elevator.

A tall woman about his age with broad shoulders and short curly brown hair greeted him with a smile he immediately recognized. “Hello, sir! Welcome to Altea Entertainment. Do you have an appointment with us today?”

“Shay?”

“Oh! Keith, hi! I didn’t think I’d ever see you here.”

He felt a little better seeing someone he knew. Hunk, another classmate and a good friend, was her boyfriend, pretty much since they all started college together. Keith was surprised Hunk hadn’t popped the question by now after four years, but the large Hawaiian man always brushed it off with a simple explanation of how they were just continuing to enjoy their youth. No need for any white picket fences just yet.

“What brings you out here?” Shay asked curiously.

“Interview, actually.”

Her amber eyes lit up as a smile created deep dimples in her golden cheeks. “How exciting!” Seriously, she had to have created from the same drop of sunshine as Hunk.

“Hang on one second,” she added as she typed away on the computer. “Let me just confirm your appointment, and then I'll let your interviewer know you're here.”

“How long have you been working here?” Keith was not one for small talk, but he had known Shay for years, and she had always been easy to converse with and not have things get awkward.

“Three months now. It's lovely. The pay is about what you would expect for a receptionist but the benefits are wonderful. Oh.”

Keith's eyebrows rose at her sudden frown. “What's up?”

“Dealer position, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm sorry, wow, this is a bit of a blunder. You should be downstairs in the casino.”

Keith blinked in surprise. “Huh? The email I got said to be up here.”

“And I'm so sorry about that,” Shay apologized again and gave him a wry smile. “Someone must have goofed up and sent you the wrong email. Good thing we have the computer system, right? We just have so many positions open now since the casino keeps growing. Miss Allura says the company might be able to build another at this - “

Keith's eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he would have been less shocked if Shay had sprouted horns in her curly hair instead. “Who? What was that name?”

“Allura.” And Shay wasn’t the one who said it.

That too familiar, light British accent coming from right behind him sent chills down Keith's spine.

“Good morning, Miss Allura, you look lovely today,” Shay greeted cheerfully before Keith could bring himself to turn around.

“Thank you, Shay. You look lovely as well. Are those new earrings?”

“Yes! Hunk bought them for me last night as an anniversary gift.”

Keith couldn't shake the feeling that the woman behind him was prolonging this string of pleasantries for the sole purpose of making him uncomfortable.

“And who is our guest today? I didn't think I had any interviews lines up until this afternoon.”

Keith turned around, raising his eyes. Allura stood a few inches taller than him in her heels, another meticulously tailored suit hugging along her curves, a solid rose pink instead of a pinstripe lilac this time. She really had a thing for the pastel aesthetic. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, curls sweeping along her shoulders and down her back. She smiled politely at him, but other than that, didn't really react to him.

“This is Keith Song, he’s here for a dealer interview but there was a mixup with the emails,” Shay explained. “Ke – er, Mr. Song, this is Allura Altea, CEO of Altea Entertainment.”

Keith felt his soul wither and die piece by piece as a beautiful and self-assured smile spread over her face and she said in that velvet accent of hers, “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Song.”

Oh.

OH.

But this wasn’t such a terrible thing, was it? Keith was just a barista. There was no way a suave businesswoman like the CEO of Altea Entertainment would remember the barista who got a bit lippy with her at a random Starbucks just because she was taking too long to order. That was probably the story of her life every morning. And why was he getting all jittery for, anyway, what could she possibly do to him, sue him? She was just a person.

And the CEO of a company he was trying to get hired into.

Well, fuck him sideways with a cactus.

No, he was still okay. Even if she had a photographic memory, she probably still wouldn’t recognize him. He had a far more professional look about him with his ponytail, his bangs combed and gelled to the side out of his face, his eyes clear and lacking the tired exasperation they always had during the morning rush. He even managed to give Allura a very polite smile, one that actually felt genuine on his own face and not just the customer service mask he forced himself to wear from 7 to 3 five days or more a week. His posture was straighter, not hunched over a register or coffee machine. In short, he looked far more energetic and professional.

“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he said with a tone that was truly pleasant and not robotic politeness. Which made him even less recognizable. Hell, he was pretty sure even Shiro would have no idea who he was in this moment.

Allura’s cerulean eyes sized him up for a brief moment as they shook hands, and her smile widened. “Shay, call down to Barbara and let her know that her 9:30 will be interviewing with me instead.”

Shay and Keith both dropped their jaws in simultaneous surprise. Shay recovered first. “Y-yes, Miss Allura, at once!” And the words had barely left her mouth when she was on the phone calling down the game floor.

Meanwhile, Allura motioned with her finger for Keith to follow her. Unsure about this sudden and very unexpected turn of events but not wanting to start off on the wrong foot if Allura had indeed forgotten him, Keith obeyed without protest. She led him past the cubicles and then through a long hall of doors until finally they arrived at a large glass door with Allura’s name and position written over the opaque surface in elegant script.

The room inside had actually been split into two: a waiting area with a large oak desk in the front. Next to the desk, another door, this time wood, stood open to reveal Allura’s actual office on the other side. The waiting room looked like it hadn't been used since the casino was built a few months ago. The desk stood naked and untouched; even the double-monitor computer hadn't been plugged in yet.

In contrast, Allura’s desk was nothing short of administrative chaos. Stacks of papers, files, old Starbucks cups, post-it notes, mail, all jumbled together covering every inch of the desk including the keyboard to her own double-monitor computer. Even the trash basket, several actually, overflowed with coffee cups and paper waste.

“Have a seat, Mr. Song,” Allura said warmly. “Please excuse the mess. Still in the process of moving in. Umm…”

Keith tossed another damn coffee cup off the guest chair and into the already full waste basket where it promptly bounced back onto the floor.

“Don't worry about it,” she assured him as she shoved armfuls of her paper junk into various drawers that looked filled to the brim. Some even refused to close at first, but she forced the furniture to bend to her will and shoved the drawers closed anyway.

“Sorry about that,” she apologized again, sitting down at her desk now clean enough for her to access her keyboard and mouse. “One tick while I see if Shay has sent your file yet. Ah. There it is.”

“You have a file on me?” Keith hoped he didn't come off as rude, but damn if that didn't sound a bit creepy.

“Mostly the work history and resume you sent us. And your background check.”

“Already?”

She chuckled. “It’s a very basic check we do for the best candidates, just to make sure you’re not a homicidal maniac or a member of the drug cartel. And your application is quite… the interesting read.”

Keith felt his heart sink. “It is?”

“You’ve held twenty-four different jobs in various retail and fast food establishments in the past five years. It seems you have no issue finding work, but maintaining your employment is another story altogether.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, squirming uncomfortably.

“If you’ll forgive my bluntness, your customer service could use quite a bit of work from what I’ve already seen. This work history merely confirms my assumptions.”

Her voice was good-natured, but she may as well have reached over the desk and punched him in the nose. He gaped at her. “Yes, I remember you from the Starbucks up in Centennial. Not too many baristas get mouthy with me.”

She frowned then, and the rest of Keith’s soul fled in terror. “And I can tell you right now that kind of charisma will not fly in my casino. Keith – if I may call you that – being a Blackjack dealer is far more than just passing out cards. If you want the best pay, the best tips, it is a _performance._ You must be able to engage with the patrons, entertain them, keep them at _your_ table. And judging by this long list of past employers, I suspect the common denominator is your complete lack of service skills. You make very good coffee, sure, but you act like it’s just a job and an inconvenient one at that. Tell me, Keith, are you a people person?”

God, how the fuck did this woman have him so pegged after only speaking to him for a max of ten minutes over three days and glancing at five pages of his employment history? He wanted so bad to tell her she was dead wrong about him, only she was absolutely right and of course it was written all over his face.

“No,” he admitted, knowing that he just completely slammed the door on getting that dealer position.

Okay, yes, he preferred to be alone. Aside from the few friends he did enjoy hanging out with like Shiro and Lance’s fun roommates (and sometimes Lance – only sometimes), social interactions were more often than not completely exhausting. Keith’s happiest moments were with an interesting book about space travel. Or working on his motorcycle. Or researching and creating conspiracy theories to post on his blog and watch the entire forum he would link to flip their collective shit. He never considered himself an actual loner, he liked being around his friends just fine whenever they wanted to hang out, but he was definitely not a people person.

Allura tilted her head as she studied his face. “Keith,” she began softly, “why did you apply for this job, anyway?”

“Uh…” Not the most elegant way to make his case, if he even had one to make anymore. To be honest, he just really needed a job that got him out of fucking Starbucks. He liked Blackjack, he’d like to think he was pretty good at it, and he figured that skill was all he would need to score some decent tips alongside his usual wages. And working at a casino sounded pretty exciting in a James Bond kind of way.

So he told her that. All of it. Except the James Bond part because that sounded a little lame.

There was no judgment in Allura’s eyes, however. She seemed genuinely curious. “I ask because according to your education history, you have a Bachelor’s in journalism. Yet, none of your past employments had anything to do with journalism, not even an internship.”

He fidgeted, scratching the back of his head. “Honestly, I just kinda lost my motivation. Um, the closer I got to completing my degree, the more disenchanted I got with the field, I guess. But I stuck with it because I didn’t really have a Plan B or anything like that. Didn’t want my scholarship to go to waste.”

“You received a scholarship?”

“For being valedictorian of my high school class, yeah.”

“Impressive.”

With a creak of her leather chair, she leaned forward a bit, crossing her arms atop her desk.

“You do realize this makes you _overqualified_ for the dealer job, yes? Game dealers generally make minimum wage here, not counting their tips, and don’t require a college degree since we provide job training. Typically, we reserve such positions for those who haven’t completed college unless the prospective employee demonstrates exceptional social skills which are _vital_ for a dealer. You admitted yourself that you do not have such skills, neither do you enjoy being around people. That’s why you are trying to leave your current position, correct? Because you are unhappy. Customer service makes you unhappy. I’m not in the habit of employing those who have no intention of staying with the casino at least for a little while, and I don’t believe you will last long as a dealer. It will be a waste of both our time and yours.”

Ouch. Fucking Christ, _ouch._ This woman pulled no punches. Did she really invite him back to her office just so she could yank out what little soul he had left and beat it up in front of him? Yeah, he was shit at socializing, but Keith wasn’t a goddamn _ogre._ She could have just said she didn’t think he would be good for the job and simply leave it at that. Why was _she_ interviewing him, anyway, and not that Barbara person?

“Therefore, I brought you here because I have another position in mind that I think might be a better fit for you,” Allura continued as if having read his mind. “Typically, I review applications myself before I have interviews sent out, and yours made me the most curious. You listed in your resume as organization being one of your top skills. Let’s put that to the test, shall we?”

Keith had no time to ask what in the hell she meant because Allura was already rummaging through the piles of papers she had shoved aside and not into drawers. She really did whatever the fuck she wanted, didn’t she? The privilege of the rich and powerful, he supposed.

The fact that he was a little curious about where she was going with this was the only thing that kept his ass on that chair instead of walking out right here and now. He just wanted to go home. Go home and stew in this failure, grateful he hadn’t been brash enough to put in his notice at the coffee shop just yet. They couldn’t afford Keith being unemployed, not even with the disability benefits Shiro received on top of his meager teacher’s salary. The house was just too expensive, but they really couldn’t move anywhere else.

“Here it is!” Allura beamed as she presented a pink sheet of paper with bubbly purple writing. “These are the places I have to be next week. Last minute responsibilities I need to somehow have squeezed in my already tight schedule. I want you to use this list to draw up a schedule for me that utilizes my time in the most efficient manner.”

She handed him a book covered with illustrations of cute flowers, smiling sweetly. “Use the schedule I already have. Also, none of the appointments inside can be canceled, not this close to the meeting date.”

Still unsure what all this was about, Keith shrugged. “Sure.” And he took the book and a pen, and set to work.

 

* * *

 

He was done in fifteen minutes.

The room had gone steadily, wonderfully quiet with only the sound of Allura’s fingers gently tapping away at her keyboard. It was the quiet that let him concentrate as well as he did, and in little time at all, he had drawn up a schedule with Allura’s newly added appointments that wouldn’t exhaust her too much. A CEO did a lot more than Keith thought, from business meetings to charity functions, and he wondered if Allura even had a board of directors to distribute responsibilities to or if she was doing everything herself.

She seemed like the type who would do the latter, but then again, he didn’t have the ability to judge character on a creepily psychic level like she did.

“I’ve made a few notes for future reference,” Keith explained as Allura looked over the schedule. “And I have here an entirely new schedule that I think would fit way better, if you are able to at least bump some of these appointments around. Traffic on the 15 is a nightmare between two and six, especially northbound on a Friday when everyone is pouring in from California. You will definitely not get back from Henderson in time for your negotiation with MGM. Since I’m sure MGM has more restricted time than anyone else on this list, I suggested that you either move your Henderson interviews to a few hours earlier that morning or bump them to the next afternoon. MGM is one of the biggest companies in Vegas, you’ll want a huge buffer of time in order to make your appointment with them. Not to be rude, but you are just a little fish in the pond still. Even being on time might look bad. And Primm? Primm is an all-day thing on its own, there will just be no way around that. You definitely have to make some cancelations here.”

He went over a few more of his notes, but with every other word he noticed more and more that she was staring at him and not really paying attention. Eventually, he trailed off, clearing his throat. “Miss Altea?”

“Allura is fine,” she replied, almost absentmindedly. “You know quite a bit about the city, don’t you?”

“I’ve lived here all my life, so yeah.”

“And what’s my favorite coffee?”

The question was seemed so unrelated, it startled him yet he replied almost automatically, as if he was right back at Starbucks taking an order: “Verde white mocha with two shots of espresso and whipped cream.”

Allura beamed at him then, blue eyes lighting up, that desert sky returning. He felt like he was going to fall right into them, like gravity no longer existed.

“Mr. Song,” she said, swinging right back to formalities though the wide, even excited smile remained, “since you are interested in working for my company, anyway, instead of forcing yourself to work as a dealer, a position you are incompatible with, allow me to offer something different.”

 

* * *

 

Keith had only just reached the casino floor when his phone started vibrating in his pocket. Shiro. Good Lord, how was everyone capable of reading his mind today? “What’s up?” he asked, weaving through the crowd of people wandering around the lobby on a Tuesday of all days.

 _“Nothing much, buddy, just calling to see how your interview went,”_ Shiro replied.

“Shouldn’t you be teaching a class?”

_“It’s lunch. You were at your interview a long time. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard any news from you yet. But that’s good right? You’re in the middle of learning the ropes?”_

“Actually, um, I didn’t get the job.”

_“Oh. Dude, I’m sorry.”_

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m still here. I got a different position that I start today, so I’m going to be here for a bit longer. I’m just grabbing a bite before I start setting up my desk.”

_“Desk?”_

“Uh, you remember that chick I was complaining about a few days ago?”

Keith actually wasn’t in the habit of complaining about customers because not a day went by that he hadn’t dealt with at least one rude person, but something about Allura had set him on edge enough to rant to Shiro over a round of Mario Kart that evening.

 _“Yes…?”_ Shiro’s answer was hesitant, as if he was trying piece together how Keith’s question was relevant.

“Turns out she’s Allura Altea, the CEO of Altea Entertainment. Dunno why she was all the up north, but yeah.”

The seconds of silence seemed to almost stretch to minutes. _“Oh. Oh, damn. Wow. Not the kind of person to piss off. Did she remember you?”_

“Yeeeah, she did. So she interviewed me instead of the dealer person. And, I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but now I’m her Personal Assistant.”

**Author's Note:**

> I actually really like Starbucks so Keith's hatred of it pains me deeply.


End file.
